


This Little Piggy

by SEpupppupp (ForNought)



Series: This Little Piggy [1]
Category: Produce 101 (TV)
Genre: Gen, High School AU, M/M, bad compliments, lots of talk but no action in regards to kissing, typical haknyeon loves pigs stuff, typical sunghyuk loves crying stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 18:10:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11190534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForNought/pseuds/SEpupppupp
Summary: Hyunmin likes saying nice things to his friend Haknyeon, but he doesn't much like how awkward Haknyeon is about not being able to say anything nice in return.





	This Little Piggy

Hyunmin wasn’t blind. He knew very well that Joo Haknyeon was very good looking. He didn’t need girls tittering away about Haknyeon’s outstanding visuals when they passed, and he didn’t need their other friends singing Haknyeon’s praises every second of the day, and he most certainly didn’t need his own mother commenting on it when she peered over his shoulder.

Hyunmin’s phone flew into the air due to the sheer size of his surprise. He scrambled across the floor to retrieve it and checked that the screen wasn’t cracked. His phone was still intact and Joo Haknyeon was still smiling sweetly up at Hyunmin through the screen.

“Mum, stop spying on me like that! The things that I’m looking at are private!” Hyunmin protested, sounding nothing like the petulant child his mother claimed he was.

Hyunmin’s mum raised her eyebrows as she methodically dried her hands on the tea towel that had been tucked into the pocket of her apron. “Son, if daydreaming about a cute boy is so private, why are you doing it in the living room?”

Hyunmin absolutely was not daydreaming about a cute boy, and if he was it wouldn’t be Haknyeon, but his mum wasn’t listening to his explanations. She was content to whip the tea towel at him until he groaned pathetically. At some point in the melee, Hyunmin lost his phone and when he regained his wits he noticed his mum was sitting on the sofa and quietly scrolling through his phone.

“Ah! Mum, don’t go looking through my phone! There could be porn on there!”

His mum sent a withering look Hyunmin’s way. “I wish I was looking at porn.”

Hyunmin clapped his hands over his ears and wondered why his mum hated him so much. Surely she wasn’t like this to his elder brother. Or maybe she was and that was why he was barely twenty and already engaged to a nice girl. Hyunmin considered it as an option. If he got married he might be able to move out and escape this torment. But it was probably a bit extreme. And unrealistic. He doubted anybody would want to marry him. He was pathetic enough to be daydreaming over pictures of his friend on his phone – who would want a husband like that?

“Hyunmin, why do you have so many pictures of this boy on your phone? Look, you even have stickers over your face. Why can’t you show your face beside him proudly?”

“That’s Instagram, Mum, he’s just protecting my privacy,” Hyunmin said evenly.

“Really? You think because I’m old I don’t know the difference between Instagram and the gallery in your phone?” That stumped Hyunmin for a moment. He was still trying to think up a retort when his mum continued scolding him. “Do you think your brother hasn’t been showing me those ugly pictures you keep posting on your Instagram account? You don’t have any privacy to protect. Of course I would know what it looks like.”

“Mum, how could I show my face beside his proudly if even you are calling me ugly?” Hyunmin asked. His mum pressed her hand to her chest and had the gall to look shocked.

“Byun Hyunmin, how could I ever call my own precious child ugly? I only said that your pictures are ugly.”

Hyunmin didn’t see how that was different and he snatched his phone from his mum to continue looking at the pictures in his phone in the privacy of his bedroom.

 

At school the next day, Hyunmin couldn’t help but notice how good Haknyeon looked. There was something different about him. His hair looked that bit shinier and bouncier and it nicely softened the refinement of his facial features. Hyunmin noticed it, so, as usual, he couldn’t not mention it.

“You look beautiful today, Haknyeon,” Hyunmin said. For some bizarre reason. Probably because he was stupid.

Haknyeon looked up from the book he was skimming through on his desk. Even just blinking was something to make people’s hearts flutter. He smiled up at Hyunmin, prettily pink, and gestured for Hyunmin to sit at the desk beside him.

“Good morning, Hyunmin. Thank you for saying something so nice,” Haknyeon said. His voice was soft so at times like this Hyunmin always had to listen carefully in case he missed something. Haknyeon tucked his chin close to his chest as he looked over at Hyunmin. “I like… Um, the way you are dressed today is very nice.”

Hyunmin looked down at himself. Everybody here was dressed the same. They were wearing a school uniform. Hyunmin laughed loudly and hoped his voice didn’t sound too strained as he slapped his hand on the surface of the desk a few times. “Ah, Joo Haknyeon, you really are too funny!”

Haknyeon’s pretty pinkness had saturated to a sweaty redness. He looked away from Hyunmin and pretended to stare down at his book again. “I’m sorry, Hyunmin.”

“Why would you need to apologise? A compliment is a compliment. If you say the way I am dressed today is nice I will dress this way every day for the rest of my life.”

That only seemed to make matters worse and Haknyeon was hunched further and further into the fold of his book. Hyunmin didn’t know what to say. Anything else he might say could make things worse. But there was no time for him to attempt to mend things. The actual owner of the desk had arrived. She looked quite sweaty too, but luckily that was because she ran to school every day to barely beat the bell rather than because Hyunmin was making her suffer.

Hyunmin went to his own seat at the back of the classroom and tried to stay positive through the literature lesson.

 

Haknyeon was having a staring contest with his lunch but as much as Hyunmin wanted to interrupt he had to go elsewhere. He rushed to the classroom next door and hoped that somebody else would keep Haknyeon company for him. He peered through the door but Sunghyuk was facing the other way and there was no way to catch his eye.

Hyunmin was waving his arms around and hissing but still Sunghyuk didn’t pay him any attention. Ahn Hyungseob, who had forgone eating lunch to make a fuss about something at the front of the classroom, noticed.

“Wah~! Byun Hyunmin has come to visit our class, everyone!” Hyungseob cheered. Everybody turned to look at Hyunmin with varying levels of interest. Finally Sunghyuk was looking. But Hyunmin could hardly ask for advice when everybody was staring at him.

“Hello, Class Four,” Hyunmin said awkwardly. The greeting was returned by some of the people who weren’t more focused on stuffing their faces. Hyungseob skipped over to the door and grasped Hyunmin’s hands in his own very warm ones.

“What brings you to our class today? Are you going to do a flip for us?”

“Absolutely not.”

Hyungseob pouted for approximately three seconds before his face split into a grin. “Then are you here because you love me very much?”

No amount of fluttered eyelashes and pouting would change the answer. “No. I came to see Sunghyuk.”

Hyungseob’s expression dropped quickly and he folded his arms across his chest. He looked over his shoulder and called out, “Sunghyuk, come over here.”

Sunghyuk stood from his seat and made his way over to the door. He was smiling and Hyunmin wondered whether he was aware of the grain of rice at the side of his mouth. Luckily he wiped his mouth before he was standing in front of Hyungseob. Unluckily he was smiling idiotically.

“Hyungseob, what can I do for you?” Sunghyuk asked.

Hyungseob didn’t return the smile and he primly tucked his hair behind his ear. “Not me. Him. Byun Hyunmin wishes to speak with you. Both of you can go.”

Sunghyuk made to go back to his desk but Hyungseob’s arm quickly shot out to impede him. He shook his head slowly. “Out.”

“But, Hyungseob, my lunch.”

“Leave,” Hyungseob said firmly. Hyunmin pulled at Sunghyuk’s arm and he eventually gave up and followed. Hyungseob even closed the classroom door behind them.

“Why do you let him talk to you like that?” Hyunmin asked as he set off down the corridor. Sunghyuk fell into step with him and knocked their shoulders together.

“You let him talk to me like that too,” Sunghyuk pointed out. That didn’t matter at all. Hyunmin knocked their shoulders again with more force this time. Sunghyuk stumbled a bit and pulled a face.

“Never mind that, what about me? Do you know what I did today? I made Joo Haknyeon turn bright red all over his face. Completely red. I am really making him hate me.”

“Why was he red? Did you hit him?” Sunghyuk asked.

“Why would I hit him? You think I made him bleed? How could I do that to his beautiful, beautiful face?” Hyunmin shook his head. He slapped Sunghyuk’s arm. Not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough for him to know he was being silly. “What do I do? Things are getting serious.”

“How did you make him red?”

“Can you believe it? I told him to his face that he looked beautiful. That made him happy enough, but he couldn’t think of anything nice to say to me. Do you think I pressured him? He doesn’t have to say anything nice to me. But I was thinking that maybe if he says nothing back he might feel strange,” Hyunmin said.

He had been thinking about it all morning. One solution could be to stop complimenting Haknyeon but Hyunmin didn’t like the thought of that. He didn’t want to think about what might happen if the nice words Haknyeon was used to hearing stopped and he got upset. Another option, a better option, was to tell him what to say. It had taken him the entirety of History to think of that, but he hadn’t any thoughts on what sort of things he would tell Haknyeon to say.

“I need your help, Sunghyuk. I can keep saying nice things to Haknyeon if he has something to say back to me. I only need to think of things for him to say. I will write them on a card in my neatest hand-writing and each time I compliment him there won’t be any need for him to feel pressured. He can read the card.”

Sunghyuk looked very dubious about that. They reached the vending machine and Sunghyuk popped in a few coins. “I don’t think that is a very good idea.”

Hyunmin pressed the button for banana milk impatiently. “You were the first person I thought of, Sunghyuk. You really need to help me.”

“What can I do? I just wanted to eat my lunch.”

“Exactly!” Hyunmin said as Sunghyuk got to buy his own drink. “You’re a pig like me, so we will both want to hear similar things.”

“I’m not a pig.”

“Neither am I but that doesn’t stop people from calling me one all the time,” Hyunmin said. “Would you rather I ask Hyungseob? I’m sure Joo Haknyeon will be fine to tell me things like my jaw is sharp like a knife, or that my eyes are sparkly and round, or that my nose is as graceful as Alpine slopes.”

Sunghyuk looked like he was being swayed, like he was finally starting to consider it as he struggled to pierce his strawberry milk carton with the straw. It would be ridiculous to ask somebody like Hyungseob for help. If Sunghyuk still didn’t understand how he was the best hope then Hyunmin was not above extortion.

“Hey, remember the time that kid from another school was bothering you? And you asked me to walk home with you so he would leave you alone?” Hyunmin didn’t mention the fact that the kid wasn’t some evil bully and only wanted to be friends with Sunghyuk. It wasn’t relevant to the plea.

“That was different.”

“So what? I’m desperate right now. If you won’t help me you will have to recommend someone too me.”

“How about Class One’s Choi Seunghyuk?”

Hyunmin craned his neck to look at Sunghyuk’s eyes. He was apparently suffering from some sort of visual impairment if he thought that they were on the same aesthetic level as Choi Seunghyuk. Even if Seunghyuk was ugly, in some alternate reality, he was tall so he could be as ugly as he liked and he would still be better than Hyunmin.

“I admire your self-esteem,” Hyunmin said dourly. “You can’t even suggest someone with a squid for a face like Yoon Jaechan.”

“Ask Jaechan then,” Sunghyuk grumbled.

“I don’t want to ask Jaechan,” Hyunmin said exasperatedly. Never before had a conversation with him been so tiring. “I want to ask you! I really value your opinions.”

Sunghyuk sighed and his shoulders sagged as much as they would when he was licking drops of strawberry milk from the corner of his lips. He didn’t look very happy about the fact when he said, “Alright.”

 

Hyunmin was very early for school the next day.

He had been jittering for the remainder of yesterday as his mind was abuzz with the lines Sunghyuk had reluctantly helped him with. Even at Taekwondo practice he couldn’t concentrate properly, giddy with the thoughts of what it might be like to compliment Haknyeon without making him feel guilty for being unable to say anything nice in return. He had been scolded a lot but the words of his teacher bounced right off Hyunmin’s ears.

When he got home his mum had already heard about how distracted he was so Hyunmin had to keep his hands extra steady as he wrote up the notes more neatly while pretending to agree with everything his mum said.

The first compliment on the card said that his skin wasn’t horrible, but in light of his restlessness the night before he would have to ask Haknyeon to skip that one when he gave him the card.

Hyunmin sat at the desk beside Haknyeon’s and waited very patiently. He didn’t have to wait for too long. Haknyeon looked radiant as always and he smiled brightly when he saw Hyunmin. He hurried over to his desk and quickly unpacked his books from his bag.

“Good morning, Hyunmin, how are you today?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Hyunmin said. His fingers curled inside his pockets and he felt the card he had written fold slightly at one of the corners. He tried not to mind too much and smiled. “How are you?”

“I’m well.”

Hyunmin nodded. “You look well. The whites of your eyes are very bright today, and your hair looks very fluffy and soft.”

Haknyeons fingertips tickled at the ends of his hair and his lips curled into a soft smile. “Thank you. You have very-“

“Oh, I did it wrong,” Hyunmin realised too late. Haknyeon blinked in surprise and his smile shrank away almost entirely. Hyunmin quickly withdrew the card from his pocket and shoved it at Haknyeon. “It’s a present for you.”

Haknyeon took the card and looked over it for a few moments. “What is it?”

“I’ve noticed that when I say nice things to you, you seem to want to say something nice in return. But it looks like it is hard for you. I can’t make it easier for you by being better looking so I thought up some things that you can say so that it isn’t so hard.”

“Right,” Haknyeon said. He didn’t look entirely like he understood the motive.

“I want to be able to keep saying nice things to you, Haknyeon. I want to keep telling you how pretty you are and how I like the sound of your voice when you sometimes call me after school. You don’t even have to say anything back, I really don’t mind. But if you think you have to say something I have some suggestions.”

Haknyeon nodded again and his eyes scanned over the card. “Byun Hyunmin, you are good at waking up early. You make sure you floss well every day. You are moderately skilled at Taekwondo?”

“You shouldn’t read them all out at once,” Hyunmin said.

“It wouldn’t feel right to say these to you,” Haknyeon said quietly. “Don’t you have much better points than this?”

“Sunghyuk and I spent a long time trying to think these up. I think they’re quite good.”

Haknyeon looked between Hyunmin and the card, his brows furrowing with each shift of his pupils.

“Byun Hyunmin, the shape of your lips is really pretty. They’re so full and pink. I like them even more when they stretch into a smile. Whenever you are even the slightest bit happy you show your teeth so easily and it reassures me. And your eyes too, when they scrunch up a bit with your smile I think it is really cute.”

It was Hyunmin’s turn to frown. He reached out for the card but Haknyeon pulled it out of the way too quickly.

“The card doesn’t say that,” Hyunmin said.

“I know you don’t like to hear it, Hyunmin, but I like it when people call you a pig. I hope that people saying that doesn’t hurt you too much because you reassure me a lot. You remind me of home. You’re really cute and I like it when you come to make sure I am okay, just like the pigs at home did.”

“Are you sure those were pigs and not dogs or something?”

“I’m sure.”

Hyunmin was confused. Until now Haknyeon had only ever commented on the fact that Hyunmin had dark hair or that he didn’t have any skin problems on a particular day, or that he hadn’t fallen asleep in one of their lessons. Those sorts of things never made Hyunmin feel so itchy and hot. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. This was unexpected.

He reached out again for the card, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, and as he stood to gain further reach, Haknyeon stood up too. He was so close. His eyelashes were very long and dark and his left eye was just larger than the right eye to be noticeable. He even looked a bit cross-eyed this close. Hyunmin was very aware of the fact that he wanted to kiss Haknyeon.

He wanted to lean in closer and closer until his vision blurred and Haknyeon’s eyes followed the motion in differing increments, and his entire field of vision would be filled with Haknyeon and he would be able to see if they were close enough for even their eyelashes to tickle each other’s cheeks before they pressed their lips together.

But they were at school and the classroom had been filling up with their classmates for some time. 

Hyunmin took a step back. Haknyeon ran his fingertip along the edge of the card and rolled his lips. The pressure of his teeth drained the colour from his lips before pink flooded them once more. It really wasn’t helping Hyunmin get over the most prominent thought in his head. 

“I can think of nice things to tell you on my own, Hyunmin,” Haknyeon said quietly. “I don’t need the card. I just get a bit nervous sometimes so I end up saying stupid things.”

Instead of replying, Hyunmin pinched his arm as hard as he could. He wasn’t waking up so that surely meant that he was already awake and Haknyeon was saying this to him in real life. He didn’t know what else to do. So he said, “I just need to go and have a poo.”

Obviously Haknyeon was taken aback by that to the extent that he didn’t even say anything as Hyunmin power-walked out of the classroom. After saying it he realised that maybe he did need to go to the toilet but he still had some time before the first lesson started and he really needed to speak to somebody.

No sooner than Hyunmin had arrived at class four was he accosted by Hyungseob. Immediately he pinched at Hyunmin’s too-warm cheeks and started blowing kisses at his face. “Look how red you are? Why are you blushing and looking so cute, Hyunmin?”

“Please don’t touch me,” Hyunmin grunted as he unsuccessfully tried to pry Hyungseob’s arms from around his neck. “Is Sunghyuk here.”

“No, there is only me,” Hyungseob said in a very serious voice. He pouted very dramatically and made his eyes misty and dreamlike as he muttered, “I can hardly eat or sleep these days. You have neglected me too much. All these other friends I made by being a clown mean nothing to me. I need you, Hyunmin.”

“Seo Sunghyuk!” Hyunmin yelled. Hyungseob wasn’t taking being ignored too well and he tightened his grip on Hyunmin’s throat dangerously. Sunghyuk only looked mildly interested as he shuffled over.

“You two are having a lot of fun.”

“We absolutely are not,” Hyungseob scoffed. “Hyunmin is trying to toss me aside like a stinky, holey pair of socks. Does that sound fun to you?”

“Not really,” Sunghyuk said sympathetically. “But I don’t mind stinky, holey socks.”

Hyungseob wrinkled his nose and peered down at Sunghyuk’s feet. Hyunmin elbowed him in the ribs before he could say anything too mean. “Joo Haknyeon said nice things to me, today.”

Sunghyuk frowned. “Isn’t that why we made that card?”

“Card? What card? Are you buying things for Joo Haknyeon? What about me, I am much prettier than him. Don’t I look like a fairy?”

“He said nice things that weren’t on the card. He said I reminded him of a pig! But in a nice way!”

Sunghyuk looked dubious about that. He rubbed his nose and his eyebrows drew together as he seemed to ruminate on that for a few moments until he eventually shook his head. “I don’t think there is a nice way of calling somebody a pig.”

“He didn’t call me a pig, he said I _reminded_ him of one.”

“How is that any different?” Hyungseob asked.

“Yeah, how is that any different?”

Hyunmin felt shy. The answer should have been obvious! Haknyeon wasn’t talking about Hyunmin’s weight or how much food he was eating! Haknyeon was saying disgustingly cuddly words and telling Hyunmin that he reminded him of home. It was the sweetest, nicest, most incredible thing anybody had ever said to him.

“I don’t know,” Hyunmin lied because the thought of explaining that was embarrassing enough. “But I know that when he said it I wanted to kiss him.”

“Don’t you want to kiss him anyway?” Sunghyuk asked uncertainly. That was true but it wasn’t relevant. Especially not when Hyungseob was scrunching his face up so tragically.

“I don’t think you’d be very good at kissing, Hyunmin. I think you should practice first. With me. Kiss me, Hyunmin.”

That was something that hadn’t occurred to Hyunmin – not the kissing Hyungseob part. Quite often he thought about how terrible it would be to kiss Hyungseob. It was the being bad at kissing part which was a thought Hyunmin had for the first time – he hadn’t had very many kisses in the past. Not many people wanted to kiss Hyunmin and he hadn’t ever minded because there weren’t many people that he wanted to kiss. The mutual lack of wanting to kiss was a perfect system until Hyunmin wanted to kiss somebody. 

“What if a miracle happens and Haknyeon wants to kiss me back? What do I do?” Hyunmin wailed quietly.

“I think it is quite rude of you to be ignoring a willing volunteer like this,” Hyungseob huffed as he clung to Hyunmin more tightly and he pouted more despondently.

“Kiss Hyungseob,” Sunghyuk said like he had recently sustained a head injury.

“Kiss me.”

“I will never do that,” Hyunmin said. It was something he knew he could swear until the day he died. He didn’t know why Hyungseob was so fond of jokes like that. He was annoyed on Sunghyuk’s behalf when suddenly the subject of the joke switched to him.

“How about you, Sunghyuk? Nobody else even needs to know. We can just kiss and have a good time.”

Hyungseob was the devil. Sunghuk flushed a deep red that wouldn’t have looked very attractive on anybody and still Hyungseob continued to chatter about how great of a kisser he was. Hyunmin was fairly certain that Hyungseob was lying through his teeth because there was no way that he would have kissed anybody in the time he knew Hyunmin and not broadcast the fact to the world.

It only got worse when Hyungseob decided Hyunmin had suffered from enough asphyxiation and attached himself to Sunghyuk. The excessive eyelash fluttering was unnecessary as it was expected. Maybe it was only because Hyungseob was blinking so much that he hadn’t noticed the mistiness of Sunghyuk’s eyes to go along with the twisting of his blinding ruddiness. Hyunmin hoped that Hyungseob hadn’t noticed and wasn’t being intentionally obtuse about the effect he was having. He somehow managed to look shocked when Sunghyuk shook him off.

“I have to go,” Sunghyuk barely managed to choke out. He shuffled more quickly than ever down the corridor past the students who were getting the most out of the last few minutes before the first lesson started.

“Why did you do that?” Hyunmin hissed.

Hyungseob flushed and looked around as though he expected somebody else to answer for him. Hyunmin prodded Hyungseob’s shoulder and an answer suddenly popped out of Hyungseob’s mouth. “I just wanted Sunghyuk to kiss me.”

Hyunmin rolled his eyes. Some people were never easy to deal with. Hyunmin jogged down the corridor to catch up with Sunghyuk who was very conspicuously swiping at his face with his sleeve. He jolted when Hyunmin reached him and scrubbed at his face harder as though that would hide the truth.

“Just ignore him,” Hyunmin muttered. Sunghyuk nodded quickly but he didn’t look as though he wanted to.

The pair of them had reached the corner of the corridor when Haknyeon popped up on Sunghyuk’s other side. His confused frown dissolved into worry when he noticed the state that Sunghyuk was in.

“What’s the matter?”

“Hyungseob,” Hyunmin said. It was a shame that the name alone was explanation enough. Maybe one day they would meet somebody who was shocked that Hyungseob had made somebody cry. Haknyeon glanced over his shoulder for a moment but sympathetically patted Sunghyuk’s shoulder and joined them on their walk.

When they arrived at the toilets they were thankfully empty. No wonder because the bell was ringing. They would be late for lessons and get in trouble. Hyunmin told Haknyeon as much but that didn’t sway his resolve. He crouched in the cubicle and held Sunghyuk’s hand tightly.

Haknyeon was such a great person. He valued the wellbeing of his friends over his own education. That was some seriously saintly behaviour. Hyunmin couldn’t think of a better person to pretend not to be in love with! To be so good looking and caring… Hyunmin wouldn’t be surprised if every person who had ever met Haknyeon was secretly in love with him!

Sunghyuk was still weeping pathetically as he sat on the toilet lid and Haknyeon swayed their hands. His back shuddered beneath Hyunmin’s hand with each pull of breath as he dabbed at his eyes. Hyunmin was glad that he wasn’t secretly pining over a person like Ahn Hyungseob who said things so carelessly.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you,” Haknyeon said softly. “He isn’t a bad person.”

“I know he isn’t,” Sunghyuk sniffed wetly.

“How can you know that?” Hyunmin asked. “He’s making fun of Sunghyuk by taking about kissing. I think a bad person would do that.”

Haknyeon’s eyes widened and his hand slipped from Sunghyuk’s. He quickly adjusted the grip and held tighter. His eyes were determined as he looked up. “We should consider Hyungseob’s feelings too!”

“What feelings?”

A loud crash rang out as the door to the boys’ toilets banged on the wall and rebounded onto the person who opened the door. Hyunmin hoped for a second that a teacher had come to shout at them all but instead the person hammered at the cubicle door.

“Seo Sunghyuk! I know you’re in there!”

Sunghyuk looked as though death had come for him and his face crumpled further as he mouthed, “Is he crying too?”

Hyungseob’s voice did sound wobbly and strange. But he wasn’t a person who cried. He pouted a lot and sulked even more but he had never cried. Not that Hyunmin had ever seen. The banging on the cubicle door didn’t stop and Hyunmin wished that Hyungseob would get tired more quickly.

“I’m sorry, Sunghyuk! I told the teacher that I upset you and made you sick. But then I had to tell her that I felt sick too because I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Hyungseob wailed. His voice was getting louder and a teacher was surely about to come to scold them all for making such a commotion when they should have been in their lessons. He banged harder on the door. “Ah, please let me in, Sunghyuk. I think I really might be sick.”

“Use a different cubicle then,” Hyunmin shouted back. There was an overdramatic gasp on the other side of the door and instead of hands the next impact on the door seemed to be Hyungseob’s whole body.

“Hyunmin’s in there with you too? Byun Hyunmin? Come out here so I can kill you!”

Haknyeon’s eyes widened and he shook his head. He whispered, “Please don’t go out there.”

Almost immediately Haknyeon yelped and scrambled to his feet. Hyungseob’s miserable face appeared in the gap at the bottom of the door to join the arm that had swept blindly into the cubicle.

“Ah, Joo Haknyeon too. You’re all having a party without me? Come out, Haknyeon, I promise your death won’t be painful.”

“I’ll stay in here, thanks.”

“Let me in! I want to see Sunghyuk!” Hyungseob shouted.

“No.”

“At least pass me some tissues. I can’t dry my tears with my sleeves like some savage,” Hyungseob wailed even more loudly. Sunghyuk stared down at the cuffs of his own sleeves which were drenched in tears and snot. Haknyeon patted his shoulder, the gesture dripping in sympathy. He didn’t even wince when Sunghyuk sniffed loudly and crouched down to pass some tissue paper under the door to Hyungseob.

“Aha! Whose hand is this?” Hyungseob asked as he clutched Sunghyuk’s hand with all his strength. Nobody answered and Hyunmin suspected that Hyungseob already knew. There was no other reason he would have gone on to say, “This isn’t completely like a pig’s trotter so it can’t be Byun Hyunmin’s hand that I am holding.”

“You’re prepared for those to be your last words?” Hyunmin asked as he crouched down to swat at whatever part of Hyungseob that he could reach. Hyunmin couldn’t reach much but he hit something and Hyungseob whined pathetically.

“I hate you, Hyunmin,” Hyungseob grumbled. “Sunghyuk, I hope you aren’t still angry at me.”

“I’m not angry at you,” Sunghyuk said. He crawled a bit closer.

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m not angry at you, I promise. I’m only frustrated with myself. I’m sorry for upsetting you,” Sunghyuk said.

Hyunmin was sure that Sunghyuk was completely missing the point here. He was the one who had been upset in the first place yet now he was apologising to the person who had upset him. But Haknyeon’s face was fond as he watched Sunghyuk and Hyungseob’s fingers interlink underneath the cubicle door.  

“They’re cute, aren’t they?” Haknyeon said quietly. His smile was soft and Hyunmin’s thoughts returned to the sort that started this mess in the first place. He really wanted to kiss Joo Haknyeon.

“You’re the cutest,” Hyunmin said just as quietly. “You are cuter than any other person in the world.”

Haknyeon shook his head quickly, smiling more broadly. “You’re wrong. I know a person who is way cuter than me. Looking at his face makes me happy every time I see it. He thinks more about what might concern me more than he does about his own worries. He is too humble and he should be more greedy for praise.”

“A person like that doesn’t exist,” Hyunmin said confidently. Haknyeon tilted his head in confusion but he smiled again quickly.

“You do.”

It took Hyunmin a moment before he connected the words. He shook his head quickly because there was no way that Haknyeon was saying silly things like that. There was nobody in the world cuter than Joo Haknyeon and if a cuter person did exist it wouldn’t be Byun Hyunmin. Hyunmin was a pig! He wasn’t really, but people called him one which amounted to the same thing. There wasn’t a pig in the world that was cuter than Haknyeon, that was for certain.

“You should use the card,” Hyunmin said, “It’s less embarrassing that way.”

“You’re wrong,” Hyungseob called through the door. “Everything you two do is embarrassing. Sunghyuk hurry up and get out of there before you become embarrassing too!”

In Hyunmin’s opinion Sunghyuk was already embarrassing enough. No amount of spending time with Hyunmin and Haknyeon would increase it because he was at the maximum level of embarrassing. In fact, Hyunmin thought he became less of an embarrassing person as soon as Sunghyuk opened the cubicle door and stepped into Hyungseob’s pouting embrace.

Hyunmin had nothing at all to be embarrassed about. He blushed and felt giddy at the words Haknyeon said to him but that was simply happiness. He was very happy. He was even happy while his teacher marched into the toilets to scold the four of them. Most of that happiness was at seeing Hyungseob get clipped around the ear for making such a racket that could only have come from his mouth, but it was also because Haknyeon kept sneaking covert glances his way even as they were in trouble together.

As they were frogmarched back to their classroom Haknyeon even reached out for Hyunmin’s sleeve and whispered, “I think you’re really brave and kind too.”


End file.
